Conventionally, in a case where a number of conferees are present at the same time in a spacious conference room, there have been devised various types of systems which enable all the conferees present to catch the voice of a talker.
For example, a sound enhancement system disclosed in Patent Document 1 is designed to have a plurality of microphones and speakers arrayed in a predetermined pattern on the ceiling of a conference room. This sound enhancement system detects a talker based on the voice of the talker collected by a microphone near the talker, and then adjusts the output of each speaker for emission based on the location of the talker detected.
In the aforementioned sound enhancement system, the speakers and microphones are fixedly installed in the conference room, and thus their specifications cannot be altered once they are installed there. A method for solving such a problem with existing systems may be considered by using a sound emitting and collecting apparatus which can be placed on a table and made portable.    Patent Document 1 JP-A-2006-211177